Collada:
Doesn’t work properly, dae parser cant import animations with bones and animation sets out of the box.
Oh, and faces are flipped by default as a parser function param

MD5:
Only works on 3D Studio max with limitations on studio version and whats available to export

AWD:
Exporters are full of bugs, tested Cinema4D, 3Dmax, unreliable for practical purposes.

So the the question is what is the purpose of this away builder if it cant support more formats than actual away 3D library?
If its part of asset assembly pipeline
i assume the steps of asset evolution should be
Any kind of 3D format -> Away builder assembly-> AWD2

for AWD2 to be in any way useful it has to support bug free every single 3D tool with releases of at least last 3 years.

As for Away builder, as it is right now, it doesn’t serve any practical purpose other than visually checking models.

Is Away3D still maintained?

Collada isn’t normally a suitable runtime format. It creates large files and takes a relatively long time to parse, particularly on mobile. With Away Builder you can convert to AWD, and yes that is indeed one of it’s main uses.
Another very useful thing is being able to work with lights and materials and see immediately how they will look in your finished. This is a huge timesaver.

One of the “problems” with Collada is that not all vendors write the same format. I’ve had most luck using the “openCollada” format that seems to be consistent. Autodesk for example have bastardized the format to better reflect how their own software works. Obviously that is a bit of a nightmare for anyone (and particularly the talented Away team) when attempting to write a parser that works in all instances.

Out of interest, what software are you using for creating your animations? I can tell you that people have found successful workflows from at least Maya (AWD export), 3D Studio MAX (md5, AWD export (flakey) Collada > AwayBuilder, Prefab), and Blender (AWD export).

Good Luck! And remember, where there’s a will there’s a workaround

Ive tried 3ds max with md5, works fine for chars as long as MAX is 2012
However content team uses Cinema4D
One would expect a reasonable pipeline for assets where at least plugins for content creation tools are at one place and maintained.

As for workarounds, im not here to expand the framework, im here to use it for commercial purposes in games.  Now im doing my best to not dismiss flash
as a viable 3D platform, but since minko and alternativa have moved on and papervision died ages ago this is my only options to use (other option would be Unity but that is something i definitely would like to avoid because i love flash). You are pretty much the only people that can develop usable tools for stage3D based projects right now.

did they try this?
http://awaytools.com/awayextensions/introducing-awayextensionsc4d/

I have never worked with C4D, but a quick google shows others have.

Cheers!

I have tried this extension. The output is attached to post
Try it first in prefab tool, then in away builder.

Prefab works fine, away builder and basic Away3D setup crash.
Also plugin manages to export only one animation instead of all. Ive read all the documentation with 3D artists we couldnt figure it out

Hey

You are right: The Cinema4D exporter is a mess at this point.
It will get a complete rewrite starting in next days.

After working on the 3dsmax exporter for quite some while now, i am now working at the maya and c4d exporters. Both will end up using the same python-awdlib.

At this point, 3dsmax exporter should be working stable, except for 2 things:

- make sure to use supported textures, there is a bug that lets the plugin crash for unsupported textures….i have already fixed this + added feature to auto-convert / auto-resize textures on export, but i am not finsihed with this last changes yet.

- make sure to execute the 3dsmax-function “remove Zero weights” with value=0.01 on all skins you want to export. In the next update (next days), this will also be no longer neccessary

if you are going for 3dsmax, make sure to use latest version.
https://github.com/awaytools/AwayExtensions-3dsmax/releases

if you need to export from c4d, you can contact me at 80prozent@differentdesign.de
Maybe i can help, if you show me example files…
Its not that the exporter does not work at all, its just that scenes (specially animations) must be carefully set up…

cheers